“We can crash as many cars as we want,” said Rahul Mangharam, associate professor at University of Pennsylvania’s Department of Electrical and Systems Engineering.Mangharam and his team of six are pursuing what they describe as a “driver’s license test” for self-driving cars, a rigorous use of mathematical diagnostics and simulated reality to determine the safety of autonomous vehicles before they ever hit the road…In Pennsylvania, much attention related to autonomous cars is focused on Pittsburgh, where last year Uber began operating self-driving cars and Carnegie Mellon University has positioned itself as a leader in the field. But Penn, along with CMU, is a key player in Mobility21, a five-year, federally funded, $14 million program to explore transportation technology, including self-driving vehicles. While colleagues at CMU experiment with their own autonomous car, Penn’s scientists work in a lab that looks like a very bright middle schooler’s rec room.More>>